Awakening
by Daemonette19
Summary: A recurring dream haunts Renee Eran while she's floating within a kolto tank. When she wakes she has no idea where she is or how she came to be there.KOTOR2 LSF Exile


Disclaimer: Star Wars is not mine.

Author's note: Hi! Back after a long hiatus. I have been struggling with the end of my KOTOR 1 series and decided to at least het something up here. Thank you for taking the time to read this, my first KOTOR 2. I would like to make it more of a novel length story as opposed to small ficlets but will have to see where time and inspiration take me :)

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**Awakening **

The dream was like it always was. Light, pleasant, full of hope and people long since past. The green lawns and golden fields of Dantooine stretched before her and the cool, comforting walls of the Jedi Academy rose at her back. Sheltering, welcoming, her home. Her favourite teacher's would be lecturing to other students, classmates, her friends. Leela would be there, being given the opportunities she had never received. Her son N'Kai sat playing at cat's cradle with Revan their dark heads gleaming in the sun. Every so often one would turn and smile at her. N'Kai's wide, slightly off focus eyes and distant gaze directed at his mother and the man sitting with her. Revans' sharp, pretty face alight, with the simple joy of playing with a child, her ever familiar crooked smile delighting her two best friends.

"Awake"

Renee hid her face in her companions shoulder, breathing in the scent of sun warmed male. Her hand tightened on his shirt. She didn't want to go, wanted to stay here. Safe in the presence of her family, her friends. Here she was loved, wanted. Not shunned and turned away. Abandoned to a world she didn't understand and had no experience with. Already she could feel the cravings, the burning itch that began in her forearms and slowly, ever so slowly crawled throughout her body until she was shaking and sweat soaked. Here in her dream she could escape it for awhile. What she couldn't escape was the Void. The dark vacuum she now walked within, lived within. Space cold and unending. Watching the world around but never _Feeling_ like she once had, no longer understanding. Weeping Renee held him closer, tighter. "Don't go, don't leave me again, please."

"Awake"

N'Kais' soft voice broke into her despair, "I love you, Mummy. Bye-bye" Her son was gone before Renee could even look. "No, baby! Stay here" Revan held a mask in her hands, turning it over and over, the thing so dark it seemed to suck the light from the day. "Rev.." Renee held out a hand to her but the small, dark woman pressed her face into the mask. When she looked up again tears of blood ran over the pitted steel.

This time it was Revan who held out her hand. Renee held on even tighter but he stood and set her away from him. With a last soft kiss, just as he had 9 years ago, just as he had every night since, he left her and walked to Revan standing at her right shoulder, watching her back like always. The place to Revan's left was for her. Renee knew that. But even now she couldn't bring herself to stand with them.

"Awake!"

Shadows seemed to swirl around the pair, the small, slim woman and her towering companion. Soon they would be lost to sight, just as they always were. It never got easier. Already the pain was tightening her chest. Struggling for breath Renee tried to call out again, her voice a gasping, wheeze. Something was choking her, filling her lungs, her mouth, her nose. She panicked, thrashing in an instinctive response to the loss of air.

"Awaken!"

And coughed up the remnants of the kolto. The floor cold and hard beneath her knees. "Malak," her call was plaintive and resigned, he would not come, he never had and now, he never would. Pressing her forehead against the steel she tried to regain some composure and waited for someone to come help her. No-one did.

Shivering Renee stood. Bodies floated in other tanks the light reflecting through the glass and kolto painting the walls a sickly green. There were no doctors or nurses not even a med-droid. No clothes in the lockers, just a ratty old blanket that she huddled into. As Renee pulled it around herself she realised that her armband had been taken too. The brightly patterned red and white beaded band had been a present from N'Kai just before his death. It never left her and now … it was nowhere to be seen.

Stretching joints aching with disuse, she wiped off what kolto she could and headed for the door. She needed to find her things, clothes, creds, the few mementos she had of her son. It opened with a soft swish-hiss onto a cold hallway. "The environmental controls are…brrr… fritzing and some of the door controls as well" With a grunt she tugged harder on the manual release of the door to the right. "Damn it, hellooo?! Anyone? Where the hells _am_ I?"

Relieved to find a door that did actually open Renee headed straight for the computer console. A half hour later she sat on the floor watching the now still holo-projector, mouth open in shock. "What is going on here? Someone has to be alive on this dump. You don't get a murder without a murderer." Rubbing at her arm Renee logged back into the computer. Fingers hesitant at first she was soon firmly entrenched in the medical bay's computer systems. Doors unlocked as instructions ran down a side panel on the screen. Another panel showed different camera angles of nearby rooms, the shots changing every few seconds.

Wait. There … the old woman seemed familiar somehow. Checking around that she had everything, Renee started for the morgue. Maybe there was something there. The old woman had still been clothed, obviously no autopsy or funeral preparation. Just maybe she had something useful and if not, well, unpleasant a thought as it was, that robe was bound to be warmer then the med-issue under-tunic she was wearing.

Putting off the distasteful task as long as possible, Renee was turning a plasma torch over and over in her hands. Badly weighted and never designed as a weapon, still it was of at least some use and would help in getting that damaged door open.

"Find what you are looking for among the dead?"

With a startled squeak Renee spun around, the tool falling from her hands. The old woman stood , leaning against the crude slab she had been laid upon. Silver white hair curled around a tired, lined face and blind eyes seemed to rest on Renee's face. Seeing the stranger's knee's begin to buckle Renee pulled herself together and rushed to her side. "Easy now, don't fall. I … your voice? – I heard it as I floated in the kolto tank."

"Yes, I had hoped as much - I slept here too long and could not awaken. It may be that I reached out, unconsciously, and your mind must have been a willing one. Or perhaps you have been trained for such things?"

Renee couldn't help it, her temper flared. In the tank she had been at such peace - she had not been willing, not at all and this, this _stranger_ had reached into her mind, delved into her innermost longings and wishes and ripped her from her dreams. Her mouth went dry and her vision started to get white at the edges. Heat ran up her arms, the burning in the right always worse. Unconsciously she rubbed at it, then scratched. The cravings were always there, a footnote at the back of her mind but in times of stress or anger, they burned. Maybe there was something in the medical bay she could have, just to take the edge off.

"Are you alright, child? Are you still injured?" Long fingers stroked her bare arm.

"No" Renee ran her tongue over the burn scars inside her bottom lip. "No. Just, stay out of my mind in the future. Now, just what did you want?" She lowered the older woman to the floor where she settled her long robes about herself. "Sit, child" She indicated the floor with a graceful gesture, a noble allowing a servant a rare honour. Sitting Renee tucked one leg underneath her and pulled the other tight to her chest. A habit that hid most of her long body behind the slender limb. Resting her chin on her knee she let tiredness overwhelm her for a moment. Usually medical personnel would have assisted her from the kolto tank. She would have gone on to physiotherapists and electro-muscular stimulation to return strength to a body that while healed had not been used in some time.

"I am Kreia, and I am your rescuer" Renee raised an enquiring eyebrow"- as you are mine. Tell me do you recall what happened?"

"The last thing I remember I was onboard a Republic ship … the Harbinger. What happened to it.?"

"Your ship was attacked…."

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